My Personal Blog

Menu

After The Lord of the Rings trilogy was shown it was generally concluded that Peter Jackson is one great filmmaker. He was able to take a difficult subject, in this case J.R.R. Tolkien’s fantasy world and translate that into the big screen.

Remaining True to Tolkien

Jackson would have been well applauded if he just showed Tolkien’s world by his own interpretation and if he cut out some parts for the sake of making it better for cinema. That is not what he did though. He tried to remain as faithful as he can be to the original material. In that he showed great respect for the original author. What he wanted to show was the world as Tolkien actually dreamt it and he succeeded in that.

The Three Great Films

The three movies in the Lord of the Rings trilogy are now hailed as one of the greatest cinematic efforts of all time. In these three films Jackson was able to capture a world that is truly above our own and gave us something truly magical and wonderful. Watching it, we actually get to believe that there are elves, dwarves and hobbits in the world even for a moment. He has made fans out of the regular moviegoers who have never heard of Tolkien before.

It is not without sadness that we watched the ending of the last film. We know that there is so much more that’s supposed to happen in that world but we could never take part in it in the same way that we became part of Frodo’s journey.

The Promise of the Hobbit

When it was announced that Jackson was going to make The Hobbit in a movie, everyone became excited. Fans of Lord of the Rings were especially eager to see the latest film because the events in that book were the direct prelude to what happened in the first three films. It was like seeing Star Wars Episode One. Everyone knew that Jackson would give it the same kind of treatment as the first films that he worked on.

But some started wondering when it was announced that The Hobbit would be a trilogy as well. A lot of people scratched their head at that. The Lord of the Rings, without any doubt, should have been a trilogy. There were three books. Tolkien intended it to be that way, but it’s different with The Hobbit.

Tolkien wrote only one book on The Hobbit. It was intended for children in fact and so was shorter than any of the three books that followed. This means that there are fewer events there. It is quite obvious that Jackson is just trying to stretch out the movie. Is he doing it for the money? After all, no matter what happens people would still fall in line to watch the movies.

When the first instalment was shown it did not disappoint, but it did have a feeling that you were just watching a remake of the Lord of the Rings. You get the impression that it was just another quest movie that’s filled with action.